For many of us, Tide is the most squeaky-clean of home helpers. This year, the 4,000 Americans selected this super-cleaner not only as the most trusted detergent brand but also as the single most trusted brand in the Home and Family products category.
When Cincinnati-based manufacturer Protect & Gamble(P&G)set out to create Tide in the 1930s, it was referred to as Project X. The company first sold soap and candles, made from the animal fats. But as the 20th century took shape, kerosene replaced candles, and plant-based cleansers such as Ivory Soap replaced those made from animal fats. Protect & Gamble was seeing a huge chunk of business being washed down the drain. The hope was that the newfangled, entirely synthetic Project X would save it.
“This may ruin the soap business,” P&G’s chairman William Gamble said at one point. “But if anybody is going to ruin the soap business it had better be Protect & Gamble.”
At first, many of the formulas cleaned clothes but left them like sandpaper. It took Byerly and the Cincinnati chemists ten years to come up with a solution. They finally hit upon a mixture that creates molecules that grab hard not only to grease and dirt but also to water. It all just washes away, leaving clean fabric without any soapy remaining. And Tide was an instant success.
Sold first as powder, the product was a huge hit. P&G’s marketing department leaped into action, giving boxes with washing machines and flooding magazines and newspapers with ads showing happy and healthy housewives literally hugging the iconic orange box.
Then it would be turned into a liquid(1984)and later the fantastically profitable Tide Power Pods(2012). The company has developed an almost endless series of varieties: Tide with special scents, Tide with fabric softness, and, most recently, high-powered Tide for environmentally friendly cold-water washes.
And soon, perhaps, the newest variety might be Space Tide, the product of a new partnership between P&G and NASA. Tide is taking a test run to the International Space Station to see how well the detergent cleans and reacts in the low-water, no-gravity environment outside Earth’s atmosphere.
8. What can be learned from William Gamble’s words?
A.The company P&G must be the first one to ruin the soap business. |
B.The company P&G scolds someone else for ruining the soap business. |
C.The company P&G should be to blame for the ruin of the soap business. |
D.The company P&G has confidence and power to reform the soap business. |
9. How many series of Tide product variety have been produced since 2000?
A.Four. | B.Five. |
C.Six. | D.Seven. |
10. What will be probably talked about in the following part of the text?
A.The introduction of the product Space Tide. |
B.The advantages of the product Space Tide. |
C.The space test report of the product Space Tide. |
D.The clean ability of the product Space Tide. |
11. Which of the following is the best title for the text?
A.The history of American laundry products. |
B.The development of American favorite Tide. |
C.The challenge and difficulty of laundry industry. |
D.The rise and fall of the company Protect & Gamble. |